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Pacific Giant Salamanders (Dicamptodon)Found only in the Northwest of the United States of America, the (currently) 4 species of this genus are the largest and heaviest land-living salamanders in the world.

I came across an ad for someone claiming to have a Dicamptodon tenebrosus crossed with Abystoma tigrinum. I thought this was an impossiblity? The photos sent look like tenebrosus. I will try to edit & post as they exceed the max size for attachments here. Any thoughts on the biological end of things? Cheers...

This sounds highly unlikely. Did they breed the two species themselves? Both of those species are extremely difficult to breed in captivity. Dicamptodon are now part of Ambystoma, but I still find this hard to believe. Waiting for photos.

I cant see why it would be impossible ,the breeding behavior is similar i believe, similar size. You get it in snakes where different species can cross breed ie corns and kings.Where mating behavior is completely different such as red spotted newts which go into amplexus and the similar sized smooth newt for example doesn't its highly unlikely.

Certainly its true that some species do hybridize, even in the wild, but to hybridize you have to be pretty closely related to start with. I rather get the feeling that these two species aren't close enough. Even if they are both in Ambystoma now, they appear to belong to clearly different groups within the genus.

Though I'm a bit late on this conversation, I agree with BC. The adaptations and life styles of Dicampts & Ambystoma tigrinum are very different and in the wild I would doubt they would ever meet together. With Tiger Salamanders spend a lot of their life in quite warm ponds & lakes and Dicampts spendy their time mostly in or around cold fast flowing streams with little sediment. In captivity if you were to try to breed these one or the other would be at risk from the conditions in which the other needs to breed.
Now as for Lampropeltis & Pantherophis (Elaphe) guttata, these 2 genus are extremely closely related. The 3 U.S. genus (Pantherophis, Lampropeltis, & Pituophis) are closely related and have a much adaptations/behaviors/etc in common. These all often inhabit the same types of environments in the U.S. and are known to occasionally hybridize with one another. Though the offspring are usually "mules" (infertile), they have over many trials in captivity successfully had offspring which were fertile. Captive breedings were even able to accomplish a breeding which led to like a 50% Bull Snake x 25% Cali Kingsnake x 25% Corn Snake. There have been some other unusual hybrids in snakes (in captivity) which haven't proven fertile to my knowledge; Woma & Carpet Python, Ball x Jungle Carpet Python, & Carpet Python x Macklot's Python. Though snakes use chemosensory as well to detect mates, their courtship is pretty similar and I wouldn't be surprized if their pheromones weren't much different in subfamilies.
Note 1: Dealing with a good handful of Corn Snakes, I know that some individuals would court a hose if they thought they would get lucky.
TTFN,
Markhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/mark_leppin/

Know what you mean about corns and hose pipes Mark i have some myself, just a point though ,nowhere does it say the cross breeding took place in the wild, i read somewhere the Japanese are breeding tiger sals so maybe it could have been captive bred.

I agree that they could have bred in captivity. It seems possible if both a neotonic tiger salamander, and a neotonic Dicamptodon bred. It seems that aquatic salamanders bred much more easily in captivity.

Thanks for the replies, all. When I sent a message back to the owner asking of more details on how it came to be "crossbred", the replies stopped. I speculate that it was probably poached here in Washington, and the undereducated owner was looking for a means to unload it & make a quick buck.